Feb 27, 2025
The Digital Creators Coalition consists of member organizations that represent individual
creators, independent producers, small-and-medium-size enterprises, large businesses, and
workers from across the American copyright-based creative sectors, including movies, music,
television, illustrators, photographers, authors, and publishers, as well as news, magazine and
digital media. We are committed to advancing the interests of the creative community in the
digital environment and are united in our resolve that strong copyright protection for American
creators should continue to be a top priority for U.S. trade policy engagement.
The economic contributions of America’s creators are unparalleled – leading by virtually every
metric, from high-quality, well-paying American jobs to GDP, exports, trade surplus and
beyond. Yet, these contributions are under systemic threat from piracy what equates to mass
theft masquerading as artificial intelligence (AI) training and generation.
Government policies should not take Americans’ private property. We strongly oppose the
creation and use of text and data mining (TDM) copyright exceptions for training AI systems,
whose proponents have failed to demonstrate the need for such an exception.
1TDM exceptions unfairly allow AI developers to use others’ private property without
authorization or compensation, which is contrary to the basic protections of copyright and
disincentivizes the creation of new creative works – which, in turn, cuts the economic and jobs
benefits to the U.S. Moreover, where AI developers fail to maintain adequate records or to
provide transparency regarding the content they use to train their models, rightsholders face
enormous hurdles in enforcing their property rights. TDM exceptions threaten the sustainability
and competitiveness of America’s creative sector and severely limit our ability to contribute
meaningfully to U.S. economic growth, employment, and exports.
Unfortunately, Japan and Singapore have already implemented broad TDM exceptions that
weaken copyright protections for American creators by allowing companies to train their AI
models on copyright-protected works without a license. Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Hong
Kong, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom are currently considering TDM exceptions to
copyright that will undermine U.S. property rights and cause irreparable harm to the creative
sector. These exceptions undermine the ability of U.S. creators to create and disseminate new
works, thereby impeding the creative sector’s significant and sustained contributions to U.S.
national economic security. These exceptions also incentivize the offshoring of the AI sector
and expose vast amounts of data to foreign control.
Under the first Trump Administration, USTR fought hard to stop this type of wholesale theft of
American intellectual property (IP). For example, in 2018, in its Section 301 investigation into
China, USTR found that such theft was occurring on a large scale to the detriment of American
manufacturing, services and innovation. In 2020, the Administration issued Artificial
Intelligence for the American People, which consisted of five pillars. The fifth pillar, i.e., “AI
with American Values,” reaffirmed the President’s commitment to protecting IP in the AI
environment, stating: “[t]he United States has long been a champion and defender of the core
values of freedom, guarantees of human rights, the rule of law, stability in our institutions, rights
to privacy, respect for intellectual property, and opportunities to all to pursue their dreams. The
AI technologies we develop must also reflect these fundamental American values and our
devotion to helping people.”
Given the urgency and priority of this matter, we would welcome the opportunity to meet with
you to discuss this critical issue further.